


And Makes Me End Where I Begun

by AnnaofAza



Series: When We Two Parted [3]
Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Domestic, Gen, Harry Hart Lives, M/M, Please read the series in order, Post-Movie, Professor Harry Hart, Relationship Problems
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-08-29
Updated: 2016-03-31
Packaged: 2018-04-17 19:17:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 18,787
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4678295
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnnaofAza/pseuds/AnnaofAza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“It’s three months away, yeah?” Eggsy simply says. “I’ve waited five years for you. I can wait three months.”</p><p>In which Eggsy goes to bring Harry home from Kentucky, and stays longer than planned.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> And now, for the last part of the series. I want to thank all of the readers out there. I would have stopped [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/4617546) if it weren't for everyone's support and kind words. 
> 
> The title is from [one of my favorite poems.](http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/173387)

_Harry Hart takes his first step onto Savile Row for years._

_He no longer has on his Kingsman suit, but it doesn’t mean he doesn’t remember how to dress. Even though he is—was—a college professor at a small university, he always made sure that he stepped out the door looking his best: tweed jacket, button-down shirt, dark blue tie, and polished shoes. Yet Harry misses the feel of a tailored bespoke suit, and it’s true that they say that the suit makes a man look his best, yet it has nothing to do with the man._

_He opens the door, seeing the back of a young woman with a bag with a hanger draped over her arm and holding an umbrella. She turns around, about to greet him, then drops her umbrella._

_Roxy’s hair has gotten longer, and she has a scattering of freckles around her nose. Gaping, she only manages to mouth around unspoken words before suddenly blinking three times in succession._

_“Merlin!” she then shouts, so loudly that Harry winces. “Merlin, come to the shop right now.” Roxy taps the side of her head. “I think I heard him drop his mug all over his desk, but he’s on his way here right now.”_

_“How did—but you’re not wearing glasses.” This Harry remembers._

_She grins up at him. “Merlin modified them into contact lenses. They sting like hell if you leave them in for too long, and god knows you never want to sleep in them! But they don’t slip off out as easily doing field missions, so it’s almost worth it, really.”_

_Harry has to smile at her enthusiasm. It seems that Roxy has grown to love her job with the same passion Harry once had—before Lee threw himself on a bomber for him. Trying to suppress the stinging pain in his head, Harry asks, “So, what are you doing here?”_

_“Just got my spare suit repaired.” She holds up the bag. “It does much better with rocket grenade launchers, but I still took some shrapnel in some of the more weaker areas.”_

_“Are you all right?”_

_“Oh, they patched me up just fine—Galahad actually got the worst of it; he’s still recovering in the sickbay.”_

_“Your partner…” Eggsy. He and Roxy teamed up together during the trials; it’s obvious that they’d also go on missions together, too. Lancelot and Galahad, the new Kingsman…_

_Roxy’s smile falters. “Eggsy…”_

_Before she can say anything else, a tall, bald man practically barrels his way through the door._

_“Harry!” he shouts. “How did—how are you—bloody hell—”_

_They embrace, a flood of memories pouring into Harry’s mind as quickly as tea spilling from a dropped porcelain cup: a man with balding head shaking Harry’s hand, pints being clinked together with snow falling outside, a ridiculous silver bird in garish red packaging with a teasing “a centerpiece for your kitchen table,” bruised knees and arms from a brutal game of squash, a calm voice in his ear while ducking behind a wall during a shootout, triumphant shouts at a shooting range, laughing over some private joke…_

_“Merlin,” Harry gasps, arms still encircling the man. “Merlin. I missed you, old friend.”_

_“Don’t you ever do that again!” the other man hisses. He takes one step back, looking at Harry with disbelieving eyes. “Here we thought you were dead this entire time.”_

_“So I’ve gathered.” Harry dryly replies. “How did you cope without me?”_

_“Not well,” Merlin replies, looking very solemn. “But we’ve managed.”_

_Roxy speaks up, eyes suddenly colder than Harry had ever seen. “Tell that to Eggsy.”_

_Merlin’s face becomes pained. “Roxy—”_

_“He thought you wouldn’t come back,” Roxy continues furiously. “He waited and waited and waited, and you never came. That hope—that hope when he saw you in America was worse than before. We didn’t have any solid leads the first time, so when we stopped looking, it still hurt him, but so much as…”_

_“Roxy…” Merlin tries again, but his voice only sounds like a feeble bleat._

_“He was wrecked. Knowing you were out there, alive, and didn’t remember a single damn thing!”_

_A horrible understanding comes, slowly, but it’s stuck in his mind like flypaper. “…Was?”_

_“He…he was…on a mission, a completely reckless one, and—” Roxy claps a hand over her mouth, muffling a sob. “I was with him, and we were making a getaway in a stolen car—I wasn’t fast enough—he—he—got shot in the head, and the car swerved—and…” She chokes up. “We lost control—swerved all over the road—and I couldn’t—I couldn’t check to see if he was okay—”_

_Eggsy._

_If only Harry had recovered faster. If only he remembered. If only he’d left sooner._

_“You killed him!” Roxy then screams at him. “You killed my friend—you fucking—” She grabs his arm with a strength Harry didn’t know she possessed, spinning him around to face her. “I—he never gave up on you, you know? He never thought you were dead.” Her eyes are wild, and Merlin seems to blur out of his vision in the power of her wrath. “It would have better if you had been.”_

_And she shoves him back, pulls out a gun, and aims between his eyes—then Harry sees Valentine—hears the gunshot—_

* * *

“…Harry? Harry, it’s all right!” Someone’s roughly shaking his shoulder. “Harry! Harry, wake up!”

Reflexes quicker than he’d ever thought, Harry rolls over, snatching blindly in the darkness to grab an arm— _twisting_ —feeling bones creak underneath his fingers—fragile things beneath the skin—and if he went further—if he went _further—_ he could separate the radius and the ulna— _snap_ the bones in two—

“Harry!” the voice pleads, voice tight in pain. “Let go—please—you’re safe—I’m here—”

Horrified, Harry realizes it’s Eggsy—physical and real and _alive_ —with his arm twisted behind his back, eyes watering in the corners. Horrified, Harry drops his grip, sitting on the bed dumbly, as Eggsy checks himself for injuries. With his crumpled, black t-shirt and loose sweatpants, along with his messy hair and sleep-ridden eyes, the whole effect gives him a mussed, innocent appearance. The worst part, however, is the way he flinches when Harry reaches for him—seeking comfort, reassurance, something he can’t name.  

“Eggsy,” Harry breathes, without knowing what else to say, besides, “I’m so, so sorry.”

The other man gives him a tired smile. “It’s all right. You didn’t know what you were doing.” He flexes his arm experimentally, rolling the shoulder and slowly rotating his wrist—trying hard to be subtle, but Harry sees the wince.

He’s _hurt_ him.

Eggsy’s looking at him with that familiar pity-soft gaze. “Do you want to talk about it?”

When Harry saw Eggsy outside the church, then near his office just a few days ago, he’d seen someone older and solemn, grief making his features guarded. But when he first smiled at Harry, he seemed years younger, more open and giving. Yet lately—lately—Harry knows that Eggsy is slowly beginning to realize that Harry was no longer the same man.

Harry knew what Eggsy had expected: someone a bit vague, but mostly identical, like a laptop that needed to be rebooted and restarted to run back to normal. But instead of the usual programs and settings, there’s simply a blue screen with scrolling white text, with flickers of blackness.

He hates the guessing games Eggsy plays, every day like clockwork. It’s not so much interrogations as it is not unlike how his students quiz each other with flashcards. Eggsy occasionally names an agent, then peers at him until Harry nods in recognition or makes a comment. He mentions tidbits: that Amelia thinking of transferring over to the British branch of Kingsman to spend more time with Roxy, that Percival and Bors organize competitive scavenger hunts every week to test observational skills, and that Merlin’s trying out contact lenses instead of the glasses.

Eggsy intentionally avoids referencing himself.

 _Do you remember?_ his eyes say. _Do you remember?_

“Harry?” Eggsy now asks again, a bit hesitantly. “Harry, are you—”

“Yes,” Harry replies, a little harsher than intended. “Yes, I’m fine.”

* * *

  _When Harry steps out of his classroom for the day, he only feels bitter disappointment._

_The number on the medal worked, but the only response he’d gotten was a cheerful British woman intoning, "Your complaint has been duly noted. We hope we have not lost you as a loyal customer." He’d only been able to say a name before the line disconnected._

_He’d hoped to hear another voice, with dropped letters and accented vowels, with laughter in his voice like sunlight. He’d longed to put his lips to the receiver and say "I missed you" and "I remember you." But mostly, he’d yearned to somehow feel the young man, an ocean away—sense him shifting in his bed, then sitting up when he heard Harry’s voice._

_Harry had imagined the sleepy murmur of Eggsy’s voice, how his vowels would slur and how he’d stifle several yawns during the brief conversation. Perhaps he’d say something before hanging up, like "I’ll be there as soon as I can." He didn’t dare think what else might have been said._

_The older man now sighs, feet taking him off the main campus road to a row of cramped brick buildings. He has office hours soon. Some students will drop by about questions for their papers, but it’s mostly Harry grading quizzes and enjoying a real meal for the first time all day. Perhaps it will pick up when midterms come along._

_So, to his surprise, there’s a young man outside his office._

_He’s not wearing the suit Harry last saw him in. Instead, he has on a casual, gray jacket with black stripes at the wrists and collar and jeans. The dark blue cap is pulled over his forehead, hiding his eyes, but Harry knows him. It could be because of the short, light-colored hairs at the back of his neck or the way he’s leaning backward, foot braced against of the pillars that hold up the sloping roof above the porch—Harry suddenly recalls waiting for someone, who nearly strolled right by, at a police station._

_“Harry,” Eggsy says, with a familiar smile, “would you like a lift home?”_  

* * *

“Professor?” someone asks, and Harry snaps out of the memory. “Um, you were saying?”

“Oh. Yes.” He quickly glances down at the upside notebook on a nearby desk and clears his throat. “ _Canterbury Tales._ There are eighty-three copies of this manuscript—very popular at the time—but Chaucer died before he could finish his story—”

The door swings open and slams against the wall.

Some people sigh over another interruption, but several begin to giggle madly in the back. The ladies—as well as a few of the gentlemen—turn to watch the young man’s head peek around the door frame.

“Oh!” Eggsy exclaims, embarrassed. “I’m interrupting, aren’t I?”

“I’m finishing up soon, actually,” Harry says gently. “You can sit down if you like.”

Eggsy shrugs, takes a seat in the back, and noticeably tries to avoid looking at anyone. Some of his students sneak gazes between the stranger and their professor, and one particular girl in the front row, Lydia, smiles ever so slightly. Harry continues with his lecture, trying to make the strange words of Middle English bearable. Many of them are scribbling furiously in their textbooks, and Lydia is busy making a chart of all the pilgrims, starting with the knight. It’s the usual routine, but with Eggsy’s presence in the room, Harry feels a little like a lie, possessing the body of an ordinary, small-town professor and tricking innocents into thinking he's just that.

But he likes teaching. He likes seeing his students come in for office hours or raise their hands to volunteer a question or opinion. He likes reading over essays and seeing how they’ve analyzed the text with their own style and perspective. He likes talking about a subject he loves, persuading others to begin loving it, too. It’s the same as teaching his boxing class—familiar and controlled, with the same triumph when a sweating student beats their opponent in a match as when another moves from a failing grade to a B-plus.

_(Eggsy’s mouth is still agape as he takes in the room, and Harry takes the opportunity to stroll over to a display. “An oxford is any formal shoe with open lacing.” He points to the tiny, elaborate stitches. “This additional decorative piece is called broguing.”_

_Eggsy grins at him in realization. It makes his eyes light up._

_“Oxfords, not brogues,” he exclaims.)_

“Now, who can tell me who the narrator is?” Harry now asks.

Eggsy raises his hand.

Amused, Harry calls on him.

“Chaucer,” Eggsy blurts out. “He’s kind of being Vonnegut, yeah? Narrator dropping into his own work and all.”

Harry sees a few of the students jot that down, a few looking confused at the reference, and suppresses a grin. “Vonnegut is not related to medieval literature, but you’re right, Eggsy.”

 _“Eggsy,”_ someone repeats in a carrying whisper, “is that some sort of weird British thing I don’t get?”

“I was born near Easter. My mum nicknamed me.” Eggsy explains, without taking his eyes off the front of the room. Harry sees the student flush and look down at his desk in embarrassment, and it’s Eggsy this time who suppresses a grin of his own.

“All right, everyone, remember to read the Knight’s Tale and the Miller’s Tale, as well as a tale of your choice. There will be a quiz next time—please stop groaning—and we’ll discuss them in class. Print out the guide online.” Harry pauses, waiting for the rustle of paper and screeching of chair legs to die down before declaring, “Dismissed.”

Those who had begun to already pack when there were five minutes of class left are already rushing out the door. The remaining hastily shove dog-eared textbooks and notebooks into bags, glancing every so often at the man in the corner. Last to leave, Lydia brushes past him with a little chuckle. Harry’s suspicions are correct: she _does_ recognize Eggsy from the restaurant.

“So,” Eggsy says, “are we still on for lunch?”

* * *

_“I needed to see you,” Eggsy declares, as they sit down for an early dinner. “When I heard about the call, I was so mad that they didn’t call me to talk to you. I came here as soon as I could.” He laughs. “I was about to steal a plane, but Merlin put a stop to it real quick.”_

_Harry’s mouth drops open. “You stole a plane?”_

_“Almost,” Eggsy insists. “Technically, by protocol, we’re supposed to put in a request and fill out some paperwork, but I was about to just call in a favor from one of the pilots and get here as fast as I could.” Eggsy shrugs, taking a big bite of his pizza slice. “It’s worth it.”_

_The restaurant’s sort of odd-looking: a brick building painted white with a bright green entrance, with an elaborate, red statue in the middle of the room. There’s also wooden tables and eccentric art that involves black-and-white photos, swirls of bright colors, and block letters. He and Eggsy are seated in a blue velvet booth, and if they turn their heads to the right, they’re greeted by a cutout of a horse running across a navy blue background of a separate seating area._

_Their waitress kept staring at them both curiously, smiled, and left them alone for the rest of the meal. To others, it may have seemed rude, but to Harry, he finds that he didn’t mind at all. There is no distraction from their conversation, leaning in closer second by second, foreheads almost touching. Harry drinks in the physical form of the man he hasn’t known has been missing for years, keeping track of every raised eyebrow and dimple._

_Mostly, they talk about small things, not about the church or their last argument or the weeks following V-Day. Eggsy mentions JB’s getting fat because Daisy feeds him underneath the table, that his mother’s getting counseling to shake off her years under Dean, that his friends are jokingly making fun of him for becoming so posh as a tailor._

_Harry doesn’t know how to ask about Kingsman—he doesn’t even know if he’s now considered a civilian—but Eggsy fills up the space with questions about Harry, and Harry does his best to describe the life he’s been living in a queer sort of dreaming state._

_They’re interrupted by a young woman with dark hair gathered in a messy ponytail as she’s heading for the exit. She glances over at Harry, and immediately smiles._

_“Professor!” she exclaims, turning around to face him. “How are you?”_

_Harry smiles back. “Good evening, Lydia. I’m doing very well. Yourself?”_

_She tucks a strand of hair behind her ear. “Good! Good, just kind of tired. I have Anatomy and Organic Chemistry this semester, and nothing but labs. I love your class, though; it’s really interesting.”_

_“Thank you,” Harry replies, pleased. “I’m glad to hear that.”_

_“My friend is dying to take it. She’s an accounting major, but wants to switch. Maybe next semester, yeah?”_

_Harry nods, before he has time to think about it. “Perhaps.”_

_Lydia looks as if she wants to ask more questions, glancing between Harry and Eggsy, but someone near the front calls her name. With a wave, his student disappears, laughter clear and bright before the door closes behind her._

_Eggsy looks at him. “Next semester?” He lowers his voice. “You’re—aren’t you coming back?”_

_Kentucky has never felt like home, but Harry’s carved out a place here: He’s familiar with the lawns and brick buildings of the university, the vivid orange and red leaves in the fall, the mild climate and slushy gray snow, and his colleagues and students._

_“I can’t just drop everything, Eggsy,” Harry says gently. “As much as I’d love to come back, I have to stay until, at the most, mid-December. It’s unfair to the students if I just pack up and leave right in the middle of the semester.”_

_Eggsy’s silent._

_For a moment, Harry’s wondering if he’s made some horrible mistake. ‘I can’t lose him again,’ he suddenly thinks._

_“It’s three months away, yeah?” Eggsy simply says. “I’ve waited five years for you. I can wait three months.”_

_Overwhelmed, Harry can only reach over the middle of the table to take one of Eggsy’s hands in his._

* * *

Their lunch is interrupted by an insistent beeping from Eggsy’s cell phone. They’re eating in today, sitting at the kitchen table. Harry remembers the brief jaw-drop when they first entered the apartment, Eggsy taking in the cramped galley kitchen and battered couch in front of the rabbit-eared television—another reminder of things changed.

Eggsy swipes his finger across the screen, and a face pops up, scowling. “Merlin, what’s goin’ on?”

Harry notices Merlin still looks the same, according to his memories, except with more wrinkles on his forehead, and he knows enough not to dare point that out. “Texas. Solo mission. I sent the information to both your glasses and contacts, but you never responded. A Kingsman always is open to communication, Galahad.”

“Those contacts are more irritating than a night at the opera. And _Texas?”_ Eggsy groans. “Why not California? Texas is bloody _hot_ right now.”

“You did say you wanted the missions in America,” Merlin says dryly. “And California’s in the middle of a drought.”

“The weather’s still nicer, though,” Eggsy mourns. “How’s everyone?”

“Better than before, but still insufferable. Roxy just got back from a mission in Germany and brought Amelia over for dinner. I’m beginning to feel like an old wanker with all these youngsters running around.” Merlin’s eyes turn to Harry’s. “We’ve had to replace a lot of agents, and Roxy and Eggsy got into some competition on how many of their candidates get positions. Eggsy even brought in an old military buddy of his, and that kid—well, let’s just say two Eggsys are a facet of every nightmare I have.”

Harry laughs. “Keeping you on your toes?”

“Definitely. So, Harry…” Merlin hesitates, before asking, “How are you?”

“Good.”

He could almost catch Merlin rolling his eyes. “I remember you as more articulate than that.”

“There’s not much to say.” Harry watches Eggsy resume eating, fork loudly clattering against his plate, subtly trying to eavesdrop. “I teach literature at a local university and some boxing on the side. It’s very predictable.”

Harry’s usual routine hasn’t changed much this month, except that he has something to look forward to after classes besides grading papers. Eggsy once confessed at feeling a little like a kept boy, lounging around Harry’s apartment if there are no missions. According to the other man, things have calmed down since V-Day in recent years—no more of those SIM cards, no copycat attacks, no worldwide panic.

Merlin will occasionally give Eggsy a mission, but Harry suspects that his friend wants Eggsy to keep an eye on him until they both leave...for home.

“Well, hopefully, you two will be back by Christmas,” Merlin says. “Galahad, check your glasses as soon as possible. Harry…” he hesitates, before saying, “I can’t wait to see you again.”

But what will he be, when he comes back?

* * *

_"I need to get home,” Lee repeats, sitting in the window seat and waiting for the Kingsman-issued car to arrive. Across the room, Harry bends over a file in the recliner, lights already turned off upstairs and glasses perched firmly on his nose. “Michelle will never forgive me, and Eggsy—it’s his second Christmas, and we're going on a holiday—”_

_“Well, I’m sorry, Lee, but for some reason, people become more violently inclined around the holidays.”_

_Instead of chuckling as usual, Lee only frowns, turning away from the window. “Do you have a family, Harry?”_

_Harry turns to another page: a picture of their target, a balding man smoking a cigarette outside one of his favorite restaurants. “I do.”_

_“Do you miss them?”_

_“At times.”_

_Lee’s fresh from recruitment, hands still shaking from his dog test and suit without patches or extra stitches from bullet-ridden damage. His leg jiggles restlessly in place, and fingers keep touching the wallet tucked away in his pocket, with photos of his wife and the new baby, a sour-faced thing that squalled too loudly whenever Harry telephoned Lee’s house. “Then you might understand why I want—” He bites his lip, then asks, “Why not send Bors?”_

_“Bors is breaking up an undercover drug ring in Australia.”_

_The frown deepens. “I thought he was free. He told me he would cover for me—”_

_“And he can’t. The mission was unexpected.”_

_“Well, I wish it wasn’t,” Lee mutters, swinging his leg and accidentally kicking a nearby rack of magazines. It shivers dangerously, but doesn’t tip over. “I sometimes wish…”_

_Harry closes the folder, deliberately. “Wish what?”_

_Lee shakes his head._

_“Go on, tell me. What do you want?”_

_“I don’t regret being recruited, but I wish…” Lee closes his eyes, then deciding to say it all in one breath, blurts out: “I wish I wouldn’t miss another Sunday dinner. I wish I could look at my wife every day and not lie to her about what I’ve been doing. I wish I had been there to hear my son’s first words or see him first walk. I wish that I didn’t have to drop everything at the whim of this organization—”_

_“Have you forgotten why you wanted to be a Kingsman? Have you forgotten why I recruited you? Have you forgotten your vows at the Round Table? The dog test?” Harry demands, slamming the folder down on the table. He points at Lee. “You’re going to be  Lancelot, always and forever!”_

_“You don’t understand!” Lee shouts back furiously. “A gentleman only appears in the paper three times, is that right? Birth, marriage, death? Well, you’re only going to be in them twice, and let me tell you that you’re not going to be immortal—”_

_“I chose Kingsman! I wanted—“_

_“You were born into it, and I wasn’t. Face it,_ _Galahad,_ _I’m a pleb, and sodding Arthur keeps rubbing it in my face. I’m an experiment, aren’t I? That’s what he told me!”_

_“You are so much more than an experiment—”_

_“It doesn’t feel like it sometimes! I have to be twice as good as everyone in this bloody organization, and that’s it—can’t complain, and don’t worry, I won’t dare, but you just don’t understand, Harry—this wasn’t my life as it’s been yours. Kingsman may be a family, but it isn’t mine!”_

_“Stop! Both of you!” Merlin’s voice makes them both pause, right as Lee looks as if he might leap across the room and throttle Harry. “Both of you have only one obligation right now, and it’s located in Moscow in exactly three hours. The cab is on its way.” His voice gentles, as the two men slowly sit down. “And Lee? If all goes well, you’ll be back on Christmas Eve.”_

_“Right,” Lee says, still panting heavily in exertion. He doesn’t look at Harry. “Right.”_

* * *

This evening, Eggsy smiles at him, arms spread in the middle of the apartment. His jacket is draped over an arm, but it doesn’t look like he’ll need it, covered from head to toe in plastic armor and swathes of red-and-gold fabric. His head is bare, and his right hand is glittering yellow, courtesy of body paint. Harry knew that he’d sent the picture to Roxy—who’d replied with the word _nerd_ in capital letters—and spent half an hour deciding whether or not to wear a fake sword.

It’s Halloween, jack-o-lanterns sitting on front porches and students strolling into his classroom with all kinds of absurd costumes. As usual, the English chair invited all the professors to a party, and before Harry could reply with his usual _no, thank you,_ Eggsy had asked, “Can we dress up?”

His boss looked at Eggsy, up and down, then smiled. “You sure can,” he’d said. “Enthusiastic, huh? I bet you two complement each other real well.”

Eggsy’d said nothing—neither had Harry—but the younger man looked almost pleased.

“Not dressing up?” Eggsy asks, taking in Harry’s usual formal shirt and trousers combination.

“I want to be myself,” Harry says, eyes sore from the lack of sleep. Midterms, he’d said, but more memories kept creeping into his head, manifesting in the form of clumsy dreams and vivid nightmares. They had seemed to increase when Eggsy first spent the night over, and all ended with a bullet in his head. He rubs at one, a little irritably, wondering if eye drops would be of any help.

Eggsy notices. “Are you okay?”

Harry sighs in frustration. “Eggsy, if you ask me this question again—”

“I’m _concerned._ In case you haven’t noticed, I thought you were dead for years! Then you turn up, and I come here—then you’re having all these night terrors and trying to break my arm! Just tell me one thing—one thing—so I can help you—”

“I dreamed _you_ were dead,” Harry snaps, feeling the lack of sleep and the unpleasant memory pushing on him, boiling underneath the surface. “I dreamed that I came back to the shop, and Roxy told me that you died.”

“Well, I’m not dead,” Eggsy replies, tone sounding almost careless. Harry doesn’t see the softening of his eyes. “I understand, you know?”

“You don’t know me.” And it’s true: he’d never known Harry outside of Kingsman. Even in those twenty-four hours, most of it had been preparing Eggsy to become Lancelot. (Except for the martinis) Harry never told Eggsy about where he grew up, where he went to school, how he began his bug-collecting hobby, how he’d hated all dogs until Mr. Pickle, where he’d learned to cook, or who he used to be before taking up the mantle.

Eggsy keeps looking at him, as if he’s something larger than life, and Harry only feels inadequate in comparison. Eggsy’s not used to Harry stripped off his suit, his glasses, and his array of technological devices. Harry’s no longer a Kingsman, and it’s strange to realize he was nothing else for most of his life. It’s stranger to realize that he hasn’t remembered being such a man until mere weeks ago. Harry feels like an understudy strolling on stage in place of the lead, seeing his partner falter, then bravely move on with the show.

There used to be a rhythm in their interactions, but Harry doesn’t know how to react to Eggsy. Eggsy’s no longer in need of assistance, in need of a goal to achieve—he’s _Galahad,_ sure and confident, as a result of being left on his own for years. Harry is painfully aware that he's no longer a mentor, not even a Kingsman.

“I do know you,” Eggsy feebly protests.

“No, you don’t!” Harry snaps, all of his weariness and dissatisfaction releasing all at once. It’s almost cathartic. “I see the way you watch me, look at my apartment, and walk around the university. You don’t _belong_ here.”

“And neither do you!” the other man shouts back, and he sounds so much like his father and so much like that horrible day, and Harry wants it all to stop, but there’s no going back. “You don’t belong in America! You’re not…you’re not…”

“I’m not _what?”_ Harry demands, crossing the room in four strides. “I’m not _what?”_

Their faces are so close that they can almost touch.

Eggsy grits his teeth. “Forget it. I’m not doing this again.”

“I know what,” Harry snarls, just as the other man begins to turn away. “I’m not _your_ Harry, isn’t that right?”

Hurt crosses Eggsy’s expression, before a well-practiced portcullis comes down. He steps away from Harry, eyes brimming, jaw tightening, and hands clenching. The fists slowly loosen, and they fall at his sides, limp and heavy, as his whole body slumps forward.

“Right,” Eggsy says, as if in defeat. “Right.”

Harry watches Eggsy walk out the door, shoulders slumping, with his footsteps hollow and echoing, like the beatings of a broken heart.


	2. Chapter 2

Eggsy remembers asking his mum, _How did you deal with it when Dad died?_

At first, she looked as if she wanted to ask why, but one look at her son, it was as if she instantly knew.

“I didn’t deal with it very well at all,” she admitted, continuing to hold a sleeping Daisy in her lap. “After...after he died, I tried to move on. Tried to bury my grief and find a father for you, as well as someone who could make me happy. The problem was that I was looking for men just like your father...and well, there was only one Lee.”

That’s what Eggsy now thinks: there was only one Harry Hart.

And unlike his mum, he’d managed to get the one he loved back.

Except…except…it wasn’t quite like that.

Eggsy was used to seeing Harry, vague and shimmering in memories, but the new tangibility and vividness now feels more like a dream than the ones he’s had. He keeps wanting to reach out and touch Harry, to confirm he’s really here, staying in the tiny apartment and sleeping on the couch, suitcase stashed at the foot of the bed. But it’s jarring to wake up to the smell of eggs and not see the chandelier, silver service, or ridiculously-complicated table layout, as well as seeing Harry with a briefcase and without his bespoke suit, standing at a podium, lecturing about some story or other. If Harry Hart was once wind that rips through sturdy tree branches, he’s now the slow ripples of a calm pond.

“Jaime Lannister!” someone shouts from across the street, obviously drunk. “Nice!”

“Thank, bruv,” Eggsy mutters, wishing he’d thought before storming out of the apartment. Even though it _was_ Halloween, he feels silly about strolling down the street in fake armor and a painted golden hand. He half-wants to turn back, but the thought of another argument, another clash of words, another feeling of disappointment and rejection in his gut make him keep walking.

He could go to the party, but it would seem weird if he showed up without Harry. The insinuation that he and Harry _complement_ each other made Eggsy want to smile; obviously, now, it’s as if someone’s squeezing his throat with lemon-coated pliers.

 _Go back,_ something inside his head urges. _Go back. Fix this._

Eggsy decides to do what he normally does if he’s emotionally compromised: he pulls out his phone, hoping Merlin forgives the out-of-country charges, and dials.

“Rox, hey,” Eggsy says, trying for casual, but the little catch in his voice gives him away almost immediately.

“You better have a good reason for calling,” she replies, sounding falsely annoyed. Eggsy hears another woman’s laughter on the other side of the line, along with a muting of a television in the background.

“You’re still in Germany?”

“I picked up Percival’s case in France, and decided to just…come by.” The tone of Roxy’s voice just dares him to start making any comments, but Eggsy isn’t in the mood for teasing his friend. Besides, he thinks wearily, it’s good that at least someone is having a nice night—day—whatever the time was in Germany at the moment. “Thought you were supposed to be at that Halloween party.”

“Well, things didn’t turn out as well as planned.”

Roxy sighs, and with a shifting squeak of a mattress, Eggsy knows she’s rolled over to prop herself on one elbow, phone tucked between her cheek and her shoulder. “I’m listening.”

“We were going to go to that party, and Harry’s acting funny, so I ask, y’know, _Harry, you okay?_ —then, all the sudden, Harry’s screaming at me that I don’t know him—and we both start shouting something about us not belonging here—then he said…he said…” Eggsy swallows, replaying the words back in his head. “It’s stupid.”

“I’m sure it was,” Roxy says, but her tone sounds sympathetic instead of derisive. “Tell me, Eggsy. I know how much coming to America—I know what it meant to you.”

“All I know is that I was trying to tell him that he didn’t belong in some small town in the middle of nowhere, as some obscure professor, and he says…says…” Eggsy takes a deep breath. “He says that he’s not mine.”

There’s silence.

“Oh,” his friend says, obviously taken back.

“Not like that, but…” Eggsy tries to explain, without fully understanding it himself. “He’s been having nightmares, and I know he doesn’t remember…all of himself. And I try to talk to him, but he just seems…” He searches for a word, before settling on, “resistant.”

“Resistant?”

“It’s like he’s sick, and doesn’t want to get better. I’m not even sure if he even wants to go back home.”

“You have to talk to him like you don’t want to fix him, obviously,” someone interrupts, and Roxy snorts.

“’Ello, Amelia,” Eggsy says dryly. “Nice to know I’m on the party line.”

“It is good advice,” Amelia defends, sounding amused. “Eggsy, you found someone who was supposed to be dead a month ago, then out of the blue, he calls you, and you’re suddenly dropping everything and flying on a plane to Kentucky. And by the sounds of it, you didn’t expect it to be an extended vacation. Doesn’t it all seem a bit whirlwind to you?”

“Yes,” Eggsy admits.

“I bet it’s the same for Harry, if even more so.” Amelia continues. “And it must be _confusing._ Harry just now has…has all these things coming back to him all at once. Then, you’re here, trying to fill in all of the gaps and expecting him—well, you didn’t expect him to change, did you?”

Eggsy shakes his head, before realizing Amelia can’t see him. “No.”

“You’ve always seen Harry differently than the rest of us,” Roxy then says. “Remember in that _Jimmy Neutron_ episode where Jimmy and Cindy’s memories are erased?”

“His friends have to figure out whose memories belong with who.” Eggsy remembers that one—dubbed in Poland with atrocious English subtitles, replaying on an old Nickelodeon channel. He and Roxy had spent a few days in a hotel room, trying to figure out which bellhop was killed by which guest in an underground drug war. It had been an emotionally-draining case, and the one of few times Eggsy recalled laughing was watching a mouth move frantically while a calm-sounding, almost deadpan, voice said, _Ow! My scapula!_

“Exactly. You may know Harry as one thing, but he’s…he’s a sum of different perspectives. I used to see him as a distant figure I never got to meet, and when you started telling me about him, I thought of him as this very kind, very cool, if odd, guy, but I still don’t _know_ him. Amelia sees him as a coworker. Merlin sees him as his oldest friend.” Roxy’s voice sounds hesitant. “And you…you see him…”

“Yeah.” Eggsy stops walking. “I know. But he’s right. I don’t know _him_.”

_(Harry had loosened his tie sometime after the second martini, and Eggsy kicked off his shoes pell-mell onto the rug, along with his jacket, on account of it being too warm in the room. Both now recline on the couch that squashes pleasantly when sat on, and the fabric leaves tiny tread marks all over his skin. But he doesn’t care about the discomfort, because he’s leaning right against Harry’s side, head nearly touching his shoulder, and Harry isn’t moving._

_“So…” Eggsy slurs, without meaning to. He can usually hold his liquor better than this. “The train test…totally fooled me…considering the last two were just the equi—equi—“_

_“That’s probably enough for you,” Harry interrupts, removing the glass from Eggsy’s hand and setting it down on the table. JB wanders over, paws on the edge, trying to sniff, but Eggsy nudges at him gently with a socked foot. The pug shuffles away complacently, turning on the spot three times before settling down near the foyer._

_“Ee-qui-val-lent,” Eggsy continues, sounding out the syllables slowly, smirking when he comes to the end. “Of trickery. Like, Puck-levels.”_

_Harry chortles. “Merlin would be pleased by that comparison.”_

_“Thought that chav didn’t know his Shakespeare, eh?”_

_“Never thought such a thing,” Harry insists. “And don’t call yourself that.”_

_Eggsy rolls his eyes. “Can if I want.”_

_“But I prefer that you don’t. You seem like a learned young man.”_

_“Yeah, I read,” Eggsy drawls, high-pitched tone making him sound as if he’s showing off. His head feels heavier, but he’s never felt so light in this long. “Hate his plays, but like his sonnets well enough. Read a lot of the old classics. Like…um…some of Austen. Bridget Jones. Jane Eyre. Lord of the Rings, sort of. Harry Potter.”_

_“Books or movies?”_

_“Both.”_

_Harry smiles, waving his hand at a nearby bookshelf. “I prefer the books, though no insult to the movies is intended. I actually have a few signed copies—”_

_“You have what?” Eggsy nearly shouts, and to his disappointment, Harry moves away from him, wincing and rubbing at his ear. “You nerd.” But his curiosity takes over, grabbing at the first book he lays his hands on. It’s The Philosopher’s Stone. “Mum says Dad used to read them to me so I could get to sleep. I used to borrow the rest at the library.” Eggsy runs a finger over a messy signature on the title page. “I cried when Hedwig died. And Dobby. And I was so disappointed when Sirius died—you don’t even know, Harry…” He snickers. “Harry.”_

_The other man’s eyes twitch, as if he desperately wants to roll his eyes. “I think everyone in my life has made a joke about that at least once.”_

_Eggsy’s flipped to a chapter page, where a skinny little boy’s staring up at a tall mirror. “’He had a powerful kind of ache inside of him, half joy, half terrible sadness,'" he reads. “I mean, that gets to me. We had a mirror in my bedroom, and I used to just stare at it. Knock on th’ surface a little. Hope I’d see…”_

_Harry’s hand lands on his shoulder and squeezes. “Eggsy…I’m truly sorry.”_

_“Don’t be. Now…I can look into it, and see…and see…what I see here."_

_The hand on his shoulder now resembles a block of wood. Harry’s voice sounds startled, and Eggsy preens a little at surprising the man. “That’s…very kind of you.”_

_“Well, honestly, I’d also see Daisy and Mum, safe and sound. But here? This—this is good enough for me.” Eggsy gestures around the room. “What do you see, when you look in the Mirror of Erised?” he teases._

_“I?” Harry takes a sip of his martini. “I see myself holding a pair of thick, woolen socks.”)_

Eggsy had mourned for what could have been, treasuring what little time they spent together like grabbing random belongings in the middle of a house fire. But it hurt a little—a lot—that Eggsy claimed to love this man, and knew nearly nothing about him. **_I taught you all about good clothes and fine wine and foreign languages and nuclear bombs, but you’ve taught me what was missing from my life._ **

There had been a lot missing from Eggsy’s life, too.

Eggsy always thought of Harry whenever he had to make a hard decision, whether during a mission or in his personal life, so much so that he’d begun to joke about consistently thinking _What Would Harry Hart Do_?

Right now, he thinks, _Harry would…Harry would_ … But Eggsy remembers: their first fight had never been resolved. He didn’t know what Harry would do. Apologize like a gentleman? Give Eggsy the cold-shoulder treatment? Avoid the situation and act like everything was normal?

“Eggsy?”

 _I heard your voice,_ Eggsy thinks, before muttering, “Fucking _Jane Eyre.”_

“Hello?” Roxy asks, sounding concerned. “Eggsy, are you still there?”

It must have been Roxy. But that voice—

“Eggsy, is that you?”

He turns.

Right behind him is Harry Hart. Familiar worry, still gathered at the corners of malt-brown eyes, intermingles with apology. Harry's breathing hard, as if he's been running, his neatly-combed hair disheveled and falling over his forehead. Eggsy notices that he hadn't even bothered to get his coat.

“I gotta go,” Eggsy replies, and presses the _end call_ button.

“Eggsy,” Harry says immediately. “I’m sorry.” He takes a visible, deep breath. “I’ve been afraid, no, I _am_ afraid that…I won’t live up to your expectations. Everyone’s expectations. I know what you expected, and it wasn’t—” he gestures to himself, to the trees lining the side of the road, to the gray buildings crowded close together, “this.”

The streetlights are on Harry, throwing his figure into a warping shadow. He remembers walking to the Round Table, knees shaking, barely able to get the words _Harry’s dead_ out. Arthur—the old Arthur—had unblinkingly corrected him: _“Galahad_ is dead.”

_There was only one Harry Hart._

And Eggsy thinks, _Yes, but he’s still Harry Hart._

“Who am I, if not Galahad?” Harry continues, emotions playing across his face: resignation, distress, and frustration, things Eggsy knew all too well. “Kingsman has been my life for so long. What _will_ you do with me?”

“I’d walk through fire for you,” Eggsy suddenly declares, right in the middle of the street.

Harry stares at him, obviously stunned.

The night breeze tickles Eggsy’s face, making him shiver. “And I’m terrified—we live in a world where you’re not dead, and neither am I. We’re both new people, vastly different from where we were years ago. And we have a second chance, both of us.” He holds out a hand, and after a long pause, Harry takes it. “So let’s live.”


	3. Chapter 3

_A gentleman always is polite. A gentleman, if in a disagreeable situation, tries to exit gracefully. A gentleman, if confronted directly, must also return the favor. It’s best to not let any latent feelings of awkwardness or mistrust linger. It only worsens the situation at hand._

_Hemingway was right. We must be above our best selves._

_This is difficult to do when you don’t know what your best self is._

* * *

The first days after an argument are the worst ones. They're filled with awkward pauses and tense politeness. Eggsy still comes to his classes to pick him up for lunch, and Harry still cooks him breakfast in the mornings. Their dinners are either in a restaurant packed with college students or alone together in the apartment, silverware clinking restlessly against plates and quiet comments, such as “this is pretty good” and “need a napkin?” They walk together at night, across the winding path through the park, or simply stay in. Harry grades papers or reviews his lecture, and Eggsy talks to Roxy or goes on the Internet. Then, they both go to bed, quietly, and begin the next day. But they try. For now, they try to relearn each other. Eggsy says nothing about his declaration, and Harry doesn’t know how to bring it up without ruining the tentative peace.

_I want to ask him, but what can I say? What do you say to a man who announces that he’ll walk through fire for you? What can I say to a man that I’d walk through fire for him, too?_

In the meantime, Harry writes. He was once used to recording down missions and intel; now, he files away lesson plans and students' grades. But something he never got in the habit of is writing down his thoughts. Harry never buys a journal or a notebook, fearing Eggsy's questions and curiosity, so instead, types up his thoughts on his computer in the evenings.

* * *

  _Merlin hates peppermint tea and garlic bread. Lee also hated garlic, but liked spaghetti, especially if it was boiled into nothing but mush. Eggsy also loves soggy spaghetti. I cannot imagine why._

* * *

Memories are odd, intelligible beasts. They come at the most inopportune times: during his lectures, at a comment Eggsy offhandedly makes over breakfast, when he catches a hint of cologne some passing businessman is wearing. Harry feels them skimming the ridges of his mind: testing him, teasing him, taunting him. He remembers the words, but not the emotions or stories behind them. He can think _Kingsman_ and see wisps of people he once knew. He collects memories as he once did with butterflies, trying to preserve their stillness and brightness underneath glass.

He scribbles in the margins of his notes, in the pages of his books ridden with post-it notes, in the tiny indentations of restaurant napkins he and Eggsy use to play tic-tac-toe while waiting for their food to come. Eggsy always gets bored, starts a game of Hangman, and takes special delight in solving puzzles when there’s only a left leg left to draw. Harry is a source of eternal frustration, according to Eggsy, because he always manages to guess the word with only a head and an arm drawn.

 _“Magic.”_ Eggsy now groans, as a swoop of Harry’s pen hangs the stick figure. “Damn it, Harry!”

A nearby mother turns around in booth to glare at him, significantly cocking her head towards the toddler on her lap. Eggsy winces, apologizes profusely, and spends the rest of lunch making silly faces at the child, smiling whenever she cranes her little head over her mother’s shoulder. Harry watches in quiet amusement as Eggsy rolls his eyes back into his head and sticks out his tongue, quickly assuming a disinterested expression when the mother turns around to see what her child is laughing at.

When they get home, Harry draping his coat over a chair and Eggsy simply tossing his into the opened suitcase at the foot of the couch, they both sit at the kitchen table to unwind before Harry has to prepare to teach a four o’clock class. Eggsy picks up a copy of _Good Omens,_ tented, lying with its spine in the air. Harry makes a mournful noise at the back of his throat as he opens his laptop, but the other man pays no mind, intent on his reading.

For nearly half an hour, Harry types and Eggsy reads. Very often, Eggsy will laugh at a certain passage, and Harry watches the catch of his throat whenever he throws his head back. He wants to ask Eggsy to tell him what happened, to explain the joke, and to laugh again with him, but Harry doesn’t want to disturb him. Mentally sighing, he continues to write, putting together faint images from last night into something that will hopefully make sense in the end.

“What’re you working on?” Eggsy suddenly asks, and Harry fights not to slam the laptop screen down as the other man peers around his book.

“A lecture.”

“Are you having trouble? Do you want to rehearse?”

Harry looks at Eggsy, sitting politely in his seat chair. His eyes are hopeful.

Switching to a new document, Harry begins to recite, and with every word he speaks, Eggsy leans closer and closer.

* * *

_Once, I made Merlin laugh. He spat out his tea all over the paperwork that was supposed to be filed that evening. I don’t recall the joke._

* * *

 They walk together along the park near Barren River, heading towards the bridge after Eggsy had expressed many curious inquiries about it. They pass faded brick walls and stretches of trees, the leaves dropping to the ground in brown and orange tones, the colors looking brighter in the glow of the approaching sunset. The iron bridge is rusted with locks clinging to the links, and Harry’s reminded of something like this in Paris, skimming the carved names with his fingertips. “Have you been to France, Eggsy?”

“Kingsman is _amazing_ ,” Eggsy gushes. “I never been outside the country in my life before that, and now, I’ve been to nearly sixty countries. So, yes, I’ve been to France. Multiple times.” He grins. “But my favorite is Japan. They have the _coolest_ toilets in the world, the karaoke bars and festivals and crepes are amazing, and Hiromu Arakawa lives there.” At Harry’s confused expression, Eggsy elaborates: “The manga creator? _Fullmetal Alchemist?”_

“Ah,” Harry replies mildly. That’s another show to add to their Netflix queue. He knows a few of his students watch a good amount of anime, and once saw himself sketched idly in that particular style in someone’s notes. All he knows about the genre is that they’re long and based off of comic books— _manga_ —and involves a lot of crying or joyful squealing.

“What was your favorite? Place, I mean?” Eggsy inquires, bumping into Harry’s shoulder, even though the bridge is wide enough for five people to walk abreast.

“Italy. Venice, to be specific, and Italian was one of the languages I picked up remarkably well, even though, once, I walked into a little café and asked for a plate of _pene._ I didn’t understand why the waitress started laughing, until Merlin informed me that _penne_ is pasta. _Pene_ is _penis._ ”

Eggsy laughs so hard that he has to stop in the middle of the bridge and clutch his stomach, bending over so deeply that his hair nearly swoops the ground. “A plate of—a plate of _penises—_ ”

“Yes, yes, it was all very funny,” Harry mutters, pretending to be cross. “I’m sure you never made any language mistakes in your lifetime.”

“Probably not as bad as that,” Eggsy jokes, elbowing him playfully in the side. They turn to look over at the side, river flowing lazily amongst the trees. Fallen leaves are tugged by the current, twisting around bends and getting caught in crags of rocks. Beside him is Eggsy’s hand, clenched around the railing, and it’s the easiest thing to brush his knuckles against them.

Eggsy looks down, and smiles.

* * *

  _I used to do things to piss Arthur off—swear, tell raunchy jokes, insult him to his face—and he couldn’t do much about that after a certain point. Proposing Eggsy was another one of those things, but he turned out to be much, much more important to me. But why was he the one to jog my memories?_

* * *

Harry doesn’t like to drink, not anymore, but Eggsy finds a recipe for virgin mojitos online, using the leftover limes from making a pie two days ago, and greets Harry when he comes home, sweating from his boxing class. After a quick shower, instead of correcting quizzes, Harry sprawls out on the couch as Eggsy reads aloud from the first few chapters of _Good Omens,_ pausing occasionally to make a dip of his drink. After a while, the mojitos are neglected, because both of them have a nasty habit of taking a sip once something hilarious happens, and their throats sting from choking so much.

“I knew a Crowley,” Harry remembers, as they split the last piece of blueberry pie. “A head boy when I was sixteen, and he was most reprehensible. He used to confiscate our packages from home to weed out which ones had sweets—or money.”

“Wanker!” Eggsy groans, laughing, kicking a foot dangerously close to the television. “Did he ever get caught?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, I was the one who turned him in. He did unspeakable things to my shoes afterwards.”

“Public\ school, eh? Did you ever get into any mischief that’s supposed to happen there?”

At Eggsy’s cheeky wink, Harry only gives the other man his best serious expression. “I studied.”

Eggsy rolls his eyes. “Of course. Perfect gentleman, eh?”

“Not all the time,” Harry admits, taking a deep sip of his mojito, even though there’s no burn of alcohol that will distract his thoughts. “I did get into a few fights.”

This, Eggsy looks morbidly curious about. “Over what?”

Harry tries his best to look unruffled. “Honor.”

The other man smirks, eyebrows raising higher and higher. _“Honor?”_ he teases.

_Have you read The Charioteer? Do you know why Ralph gets thrown out of school? Do you think it was easier, years ago? Do you think I was always as collected as you think I was?_

Harry chooses not say anything beyond, “Honor,” and finishes off the rest of his drink.

* * *

  _I used to go out into a grove and read, to escape awkward interactions. Although I was of the appropriate social standing, I never quite fit in—was very serious for my age and often didn’t get most social cues. And bent. Most of the people I knew were snobs and had relatives in the House of Lords and liked being head boy so they could hold a whip. I was planning on becoming a doctor or a lawyer, someone who helped save lives. That’s, I suppose, how I got recruited so easily into Kingsman._

* * *

 Their barista tonight has bold swirls of ink up his forearms, as well as blue-tipped hair in spikes. Harry’s hands are still cold from November's chill, so it’s heavenly when they wrap around a steaming cup of hot chocolate. They stiffen when Harry sees the barista brush his own fingers against Eggsy’s while handing him his order, and even more so when it’s revealed that a scribbled seven-digit number is beside Eggsy’s name.

“Pastry for the road?” he offers, completely ignoring Harry. He looks like a grad student, almost the same age as Eggsy, and the way Eggsy’s eyes keep lingering on the tattoos make the barista preen. Looking closely, they’re a series of thorny roses intertwined with handguns, winding up tanned skin. “Got them done at the place just two blocks down—if you want, I can put in a word for you there.”

“No, thanks. But I’ll take one of those blueberry cheesecake slices,” Eggsy says, beginning to reach for his wallet, but the barista only grins and waves his hand.

“No charge,” he assures him, with a flirtatious smile. Eggsy grins back, eyes crinkling in the corners.

“You sure, bruv? Won’t get in trouble or nothing?”

“Absolutely not. I’ll wrap one up right now.”

“Thanks, then.  _Sick_ tattoos,” Eggsy says, in parting, taking the small bag with him, and Harry feels no small amount of relief exiting the coffee shop. Something ugly is eating away inside his stomach, but Eggsy notices nothing. He instead splits the pastry in half when they sit down at the table, pushing Harry’s papers and his latest book, _Never Let Me Go,_ off to the side.

Before Eggsy takes a bite, he exclaims, “That bloke was pretty awesome, and did you notice his tattoos? _Aces._ You have any tattoos?”

“Just scars,” Harry snaps, bitterness on his tongue, and doesn’t say a word for the rest of the night.

* * *

  _Eggsy insists on watching this show or that on Netflix, and some movies, especially the “American classics,” since we’re here at the moment. But at the moment, we’re concluding through that particular anime Eggsy likes—Roxy introduced him to it—and I keep humming the haunting tune that was playing when Riza asks Roy to burn her tattoo off her back. The trust between them is so implicit, so strong…yet so many things resonate with me in the arc, that the massacre I did is still in me._

_It never will be over._

* * *

Eggsy looks proper and prim in his suit before he gets on a plane for his mission in Texas, but the minute he arrives at Harry’s class—many of his students' eyes had gotten considerably wider and appreciative—Eggsy’s dressed down to a gray tank top, jeans, and sandals. He also moves slowly, with less grace, and Harry can see why: Eggsy has a white bandage wrapped around his right shoulder.

“How?” Harry asks, when they’re alone in the apartment.

Eggsy shrugs, as if given a second chance, he’d do the same thing over again. “Pushed Kay out of the way of a fucking throwing knife, of all things. Mission was supposed to be solo, but the underground drug ring was larger than we thought. Worked with the American branch a little, named after the Declaration--or Constitution, something like that--writers. Jefferson was a right prick, though.”

Harry knows the American branch, and if they haven’t changed in recent years, he agrees with Eggsy that Jefferson is a prick. But he’s in no mood to exchange funny stories now.

“Eggsy—a throwing knife?”

“Several. Pretty nasty, got stuck in several inches. But I’m fine.”

Harry sighs. “Not to diminish you or Kay in any way, but what about your suits? They’re not perfect, but depending on the strength and speed, they could have protected you both just fine.”

“Had to take off the jackets to cover some of the hostages. And even if we both were wearing the jackets, I would’ve done it again.”

 _Galahad, the purest heart._ Harry wonders what it must have been like for Eggsy, being called by a dead man’s name, but it suits him. Noble and true, protector and defender. And if necessary, a sacrifice. Just like his father.

Not like Harry.

He didn’t die like a gentleman. He didn’t die like a Kingsman. He killed innocents. As reprehensible as those people were, he had no right to massacre those people. He was the lowest animal, the most reprehensible, the killer. Harry knew that he’d chosen to be a killer when he got recruited, but it was justified. Honor. A life to save a life. Equivalent exchange.

In a way, the bullet was almost a blessing. Retribution.

He clucks over Eggsy, makes him lie down on the couch and drink tea, and as soon as Eggsy inevitably falls asleep from exhaustion and jet lag, he calls Merlin on the new glasses that Eggsy brought back for him. It feels almost soothing to put them on—familiar—and to see tiny green links and clicks of new information.

“You can’t reinstate me,” Harry says, as soon as Merlin picks up.

“Bullshit” is the typical answer. Harry tries to explain, but his friend isn’t having any of it.

“You were _brainwashed_ ,” Merlin snaps furiously. “You were fucking brainwashed into being that, Harry. It wasn’t you, and I hate to say it, but there’s no way you would have gotten killed in that church if Valentine wasn’t there. Those people were untrained.”

“Even more of a reason—”

“To feel guilty? Harry, if you didn't feel guilty, I’d be concerned, but you didn’t consciously seek out these people and murder them all. You didn’t even know Valentine was going to be testing that signal. You didn’t even _know_ about the signal. You must stop beating yourself up over this.” Merlin pauses in his rant. “It’s not just some midlife crisis, or you being out of commission all these years, is it?”

Harry nods, slowly.

For all the words he’s said about being a gentleman and being better than one’s best self, Harry’s always nursed a temper restrained by only years of discipline. He could pretend that it was all defense-oriented, just as how he justified beating rude civilians in a pub or hurling arrogant Daniel Grant into the fountain, but Harry can now longer say that he’s a good man.

“Well, look. If you come back, there will be a vote to decide what must be done with you, and I guarantee you’re a shoe-in for Kingsman candidacy—a new title, or perhaps if you want your old one back…”

“No,” Harry says immediately, “I won’t take anything away from Eggsy.”

“Well, we’ll work it out. It’s going to be your choice, either way, but no one is going to object to you being back. You don’t even have to be a field agent. Just think about it, Harry. Don’t count yourself out.”

* * *

  _Kingsman has a place for me, but what kind of place? I cannot go back to being a civilian. A few years ago, that would have been unthinkable, but now, that I’m living as one, I can see the appeal. There’s little drama, with someone to share you with the morning sun and evening moon, and ample time for hobbies. And talking. Sometimes, at the same time. We often bump elbows in the kitchen, but neither of us complain._

_Eggsy has said he’d walk through fire, and he’s already crossed an ocean and stayed in a strange land for me._

_I’ll do the same thing._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not the end, guys. Harry (and Eggsy!) have a lot of issues to work through. (Especially Harry.)
> 
> The bridge, by the way, is real. It's the Mitch McConnell bridge, and it's (according to Trip Advisor) a lovely place to take a little hike along the Barren River. My apologies to people who live in Kentucky for possible mistakes; I'm a Southern California girl. 
> 
> Harry's "pene/penne" story is based off of something Colin Firth joked about on the Jonathan Ross show.
> 
> By the way, keep leaving more of those comments! I adore hearing from you all!


	4. Chapter 4

"What do you mean, not until nearly Christmas?” His mum’s distressed face makes Eggsy guiltily crumble another biscuit into his tea. They’re sitting at the kitchen table in his family’s flat, having a nice lunch after taking Daisy to the park, when his mum asked him how long he’ll be staying overseas.

“It might not even be that long,” Eggsy reassures her, watching Daisy attempt another cartwheel in the living room. “It depends when—uh—the merger will be signed and finalized and all that shite.”

“But _Kentucky_ , of all places?” his mum shakes her head, disbelief coating every syllable. “Why do you have to stay in America for nearly another month?”

“It’s important I be there. For business,” he says lamely, though his instincts are protesting referring to Harry as _business_. Business implies _work,_ and that definition doesn’t sit well with Eggsy at all. Work is dodging bullets, defusing bombs and international tensions, and making sure no one gets hurt (besides the bad guys). It’s exciting but often exhausting and involves a lot of intrigue that isn’t as easy as winking and strolling into a ballroom in a different suit. Being with Harry in many ways isn’t exactly smooth sailing, but Eggsy’s never had smooth sailing and isn’t going to stop now. Besides, he really c—

His mum suddenly sighs. “You have someone, don’t you?”

Eggsy nearly jumps three feet in the air. “What?”

“The background in your Skype calls in Kentucky—it’s not a motel room. And you've recently taken to stepping outside to call someone every night.” his mum says. “You’ve also got that look in your eye.”

“What look?”

“I haven’t seen it in a long time, but the last time you had that look was with Colleen Falconer invited you to Harvest Festival, after you came back from the Marines.”

Eggsy flushes dark red. _Colleen_ —red-haired and kind-eyed Colleen Falconer who used to help her parents run the local bakery. Then, one day, Colleen came over to the flat and saw how his bloody stepdad treated his mum. It was that and a combination of other shit—the way Eggsy didn’t have a proper job, the way he could never shake off the feeling that Colleen deserved better than himself, the way he started pushing her away until she finally left.

“It’s not like that,” Eggsy protests, but his mum only sighs again. She’s tugging roughly at the ends of her hair, cut shorter in recent years, a new habit instead of biting her fingernails down to the grain. Eggsy can tell she wants to ask a million questions all at once, slowly picking out the one that she needs to know first.

“Then how?” she finally asks. “What’s been happening?”  

Eggsy decides to tell as much of the truth as possible. “I knew him from before, and when I came to Kentucky for the merger, I met him again, and he’s thinking about coming back into the tailoring business—in London.”

“He’s coming home with you?”

“I think so, yeah.” Eggsy takes a look at the time blinking from the stove. He has to get going in a while to catch his plane, for killer grilled cheese sandwiches—one-part cheddar, one-part white cheddar, one-part American—at this diner that some college students are raving about on Yelp. Maybe afterwards, he and Harry can get ice cream and take another walk across the bridge…

His mum looks as the same way as she does when bringing Daisy to the doctor’s to get her shots, waiting for red-faced wailing and frenzied kicking. She takes in a deep breath, and says, voice eerily calm, “I saw your bruises when you first stepped into the doorway, Eggsy.”

“Mum…” Eggsy gasps, too shocked to say anything else. “You don’t think…?”

“Is he hurting you?” she demands fiercely, concern in her eyes.

“No! No, of course not!” he protests. “Mum, I just—I got jumped by some people at the airport—I didn’t want to worry you—”

To his relief, his mum seems placated, but her eyes still hold a lingering of suspicion. “Are you sure?”

“Mum, I wouldn’t make this up,” Eggsy says, well aware of the irony.

She sighs heavily, looking away for a moment from his face. “I don’t want—I don’t want you to make my mistakes. I—I know you lost someone very dear to you years back, and I know…lots of time has passed since then, but when you’re grieving, you leave yourself either closed off or vulnerable…”

“No, Mum, no.” He reaches across the table and squeezes her hand. “Mum, I’m sorry. I’m…well, I don’t think I’ll ever be exactly over it, but this thing…between him and me isn’t a result of me just jumping into bed because I feel lonely or something.”

“But you’re living with him,” she points out. “Eggsy, staying with someone for so long, after so little time—that’s dangerous, love. That’s fools rushing in.”

Eggsy can think of a lot of things more dangerous in his life than moving in with a former dead man, but he can hardly explain it to his mum.

“It’s my choice,” he says simply, and tries to not see her face fall.

* * *

"What do you think would have happened if I had passed the final test?" Eggsy asks, petting JB on his lap. The pug leans into his hand, and Eggsy feels guilty all over again. JB’s older and more independent, but it’s clear that his dog really missed him. After phoning Harry and confirming that his apartment allowed pets, Eggsy brought JB along on the plane and re-introduced him to Harry. The little dog had barked, wagged its tail, and went to shuffle around the apartment, snuffling as he accustomed himself to new smells.

Harry doesn’t look up from his laptop, still typing another lecture outline. "You wouldn't have been you. But if you passed the final test, the world would have ended."  
  
This is a very unexpected answer. "What?"  
  
"Well, after you pass the final test, you officially become a Kingsman, and that day, I got the call from Merlin. I would have taken you along with me, of course," Harry says. "Excellent first-time field experience. We both would have been in that church, and we would have either killed each other, or Valentine would have simply shot both of us."

“But you lived,” Eggsy feels inclined to point out, rubbing JB’s ears.

Harry sighs, stopping his typing. “By a very, very slim miracle. You could have died.”

“Or we could have both lived.”

“And forgotten each other,” Harry counters.

“Not with you nearby,” Eggsy says confidently. “I wouldn’t have given up on you like that.”

For a moment he’s worried he’s said too much too soon, but Harry only replies, resuming his typing, “You wouldn’t have given a medal to someone you’ve lost hope in.”

Eggsy has to excuse himself to walk JB and try to calm his skipping heartbeat. 

* * *

It’s become a tradition to watch a movie every Saturday evening. Both of them love fantasy, Harry dislikes most sci-fi, Eggsy thinks documentaries are utterly boring, and neither have them have much taste for coming-of-age tales. But Harry loves romantic movies, especially the classics.

As much as Eggsy blusters and insists on guessing which cliché is going to happen next, he inches closer and closer to the screen as the movie progresses. Eggsy smiles when the two leads finally kiss or muffles his sobs when one of them dies and tries to subtly blow his nose while he gets up to “get a cup of tea.” He’s very sentimental, but if Harry’s going to laugh at him, he’d prove himself a hypocrite. Both he and Eggsy had worn identical looks of soppy contentment at the end of _Stardust_.

Tonight, they eagerly decide to rent _My Fair Lady_. Eggsy’s read the play out of curiosity and seen the movie a few times with his mum, but now, it’s different. He has Harry with him this time, leaning against the arm of the couch, very close to himself, the self-proclaimed Eliza Doolittle. Henry Higgins, on-screen, is more likeable than in the original work, but the way he sneers and mocks and dismisses Eliza, especially while crowing over his triumph of remaking the poor Cockney girl into a proper lady, makes Eggsy shift uncomfortably in his seat.

JB snores in the kitchen, drowning out a few of the lines until Harry turns up the volume. Eggsy, meanwhile, spends the majority of the film rolling his eyes at Henry’s arrogance and misogyny, smirking at the “I’ve Grown Accustomed to Your Face” scene as Rex Harrison storms down the street in his gray suit, bemoaning his realization.

“You fucked up, bruv,” Eggsy comments, as Henry mournfully mopes around the house and begins listening to recordings of Eliza’s lessons. “Serves him right, being an uppity prick.”

Harry stays silent, as Henry demands, hat over his face, _“Eliza, where the devil are my slippers?”_

Just as the music begins to swell, with Audrey Hepburn lingering in the doorway in her pink gown, Eggsy points the remote, and the picture disappears with a light _pop._

“What a prick,” he repeats, with an exasperated sigh. “Can’t see them getting together until they work out all their issues, and even then…well. I guess I romanticized this as a kid, him molding some poor woman into what he wants.”

“He didn’t necessary fall in love with his creation,” Harry argues. “Eliza changed Henry, too, into a better man. You could argue her learning to speak was a way of taking her future into her own hands and learning to love herself, not what society deems as worthy. When she leaves, it’s Henry who’s revealed to need her, not Eliza.”

“Well, she’s too smart to go back to Higgins, then,” the young man mutters dismissively, and misses the way Harry lowers his eyes to the ground.

“Eggsy,” the other man says, after a few moments of silence, voice soft and low, “we need to talk.”

“About?” Eggsy replies. His tone would nearly sound casual, except that his spine tenses against the back of the couch, reflexes firing in fight-or-flight mode.

“About what we both said years ago.”

Eggsy knows Harry is not always the gentleman he’s supposed to be, that he has a quick temper and an equally-so ready retort, as well as a fierce penchant for sarcasm and snark, but he’s never been intentionally cruel. Yet when Harry had snapped back on that horrible day, words hurtling like a vicious swipes of a knife, Eggsy could only feel astonishment and hot, tight anger.

And just a while ago, he’d done the same: cutting Eggsy like a well-practiced assassin, quick and clean.

“The best thing in a fight, the way I learned it, is to never make the first punch. You just have to wait and size up your opponent, make him attack you.” Eggsy shrugs. “With luck, you can even plead it as self-defense. But…” He sighs. “The first proper fight—I threw the first punch.”

“And I did the same earlier,” Harry protests, but Eggsy keeps going, determined to somehow make up for _everything_ in one go: “I lashed out. I wanted to hurt you, the way you hurt me.” Eggsy then looks down his trembling hands. “I didn’t mean it,” he almost whispers. “I was so angry—so upset that you spent all this time and effort into trying to make me into the man you wanted me to be, and I threw it all away.”

“You already were the man I wanted you to be.”

Eggsy stops, mulls that over for a second. “I knew you were fond of me—Merlin knew, and Arthur knew. But you said—you said it was all for my father.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah, I read your letter,” Eggsy replies, and clearly startled, Harry begins to say something, but Eggsy cuts him off again: “But I didn’t know it at the time, bruv. I thought I was just some pet project, that you didn’t really care for _me_ ; you only cared about fixing your mistakes, and I was the perfect way to do it.”

“It might have started as a favor to Lee and to get Arthur’s dander up—but it…changed. I grew to care for you, Eggsy.”

“What, you didn’t like me at first sight?” Eggsy asks, half-joking and elbowing Harry lightly in the side. His right knee presses against Harry’s, and Eggsy holds his breath, waiting.

Harry’s eyes dance in amusement before saying, not moving his leg away, “People have always underestimated you, and I must say that I myself underestimated how much that you would come to mean to me.”

 And that sounds so _final_ , so _knowing,_ that Eggsy feels that he must offer something as equally honest in return.

“Same for me,” he offers, and wishes that his honest answer didn’t sound so trite.

* * *

 Eggsy feels uncomfortable as he turns in the DVD back to RedBox. Harry’s no Henry Higgins, no arrogant prick who’s decided to fix up a chav for sport. As he walks back to the apartment, Eggsy, out of a sudden burst of curiosity, types in “my fair lady recent interpretations” into his phone and finds a link for a show unfortunately titled _Selfie._

There are drawbacks, of course, to watching a series that’s so utterly American and utterly modern. But John Cho’s arrogance is traded in for awkward social ineptitude and stick-up-the-arse syndrome, where Karen Gillan’s already won his respect from _Doctor Who_ and that Eliza’s willingness to change outweighs her vapidness and self-absorbedness. Both of them genuinely care for each other, and both change for the better—and most importantly, Eggsy can see why Eliza Dooley (not Doolittle) would fall for Henry Higgs (not Higgins).

It’s quirky, it’s sweet, it sometimes makes him cringe in second-hand embarrassment, and it’s a fucking shame it was wrapped up so quickly. Eggsy likes it, likes it because it’s defined and modern and reminds him of himself and Harry a little more than the original. Obviously, Eggsy doesn’t have much of a social media fixation, and Harry’s not Korean, but they’re not their old interpretations.

“You did say this got cancelled,” Harry later comments, halfway through the first few minutes before the credits. He’s got the same look that Eggsy remembers from years ago, in the armory room, when he attempted impersonating a German aristocrat’s formal greeting. He expects Harry to say _No, Eggsy_ in that familiar  _mustn’t be amused_ and _how did I come across this man?_ tone.

“Just _wait,”_ Eggsy huffs, and leaves Harry in front of the laptop screen.

* * *

 In the middle of the night, Eggsy’s woken up by voices. He abruptly sits up, reaching for the umbrella on the coffee table, until his ears track the sound to Harry’s bedroom. The voices are familiar—teasing and bantering and scoffing—and Eggsy slowly rolls off the couch and kicks off his blankets, tiptoeing across the floor to the out-of-the-way alcove that houses a small bathroom and Harry’s bedroom. JB wakes up from his doggy sleep and patters close behind him, panting as he goes.

The door is ajar, faint light coming from the bed. Eggsy can just see the laptop sitting on Harry’s outstretched legs underneath rumpled covers. Karen Gillan--no, Eliza--is wearily watching the stage, touched by the lingering applause but glancing at her phone mournfully. She’s wishing for Henry to share her moment of triumph, Eggsy remembers, wishing that they’d never had that argument when—

“Told you that you could do it,” Henry says, and Eliza turns, grinning widely when he steps out of the shadows.

“Hey, you showed up,” she says, then drops her smile, voice wobbly with tears. “What happened to you not needing me anymore?”

Eggsy hears Harry chuckles when they begin reconciling, and by the end, Eliza and Henry are smiling adoringly at each other as they walk out the door together, Henry handing her a handkerchief, and the screen fades to black.

Harry clicks the _next episode_ link.

* * *

Eggsy never meant to look, but when Harry got up to use the bathroom and left his laptop there, Eggsy had been curious. He likes to quiz himself on what he’s learned from the lectures he’s sat through, waiting for Harry to wrap up in time for lunch, or from Harry’s enthusiastic chattering during dinner. Of course, Eggsy’s eyes glaze over when Harry starts talking about the history of this or that author or waxing over too much symbolism in one line, but since Harry bears with _his_ varied interests without complaint, Eggsy’s inclined to suffer a little. He _did_ make Harry watch the _Star Wars_ prequels, after all.

But it’s not an exam, as Harry claimed.

It’s a _journal_ , full of tidbits of memories and thoughts, and Eggsy thinks he should step away and pretend he never saw it when he reads:

_Eggsy loves blueberry pie. There’s a recipe I tried out on a whim this evening. Pie crusts are troublesome and take up too much time, but it came out perfectly, with subtle sweetness. Our mouths were dark purple, and Eggsy stuck out his tongue for me to observe. He's so...endearing.  I love how he makes me laugh._

Heart quickening, Eggsy presses ctrl-F and types in his name.

All throughout the document, there’s mentions of him on every page—recollections and observations, as if Harry’s studying him, spreading him out underneath a microscope and taking note of every time Eggsy twitches. He writes about their days together, what Eggsy likes to eat, when the plane arrives to take him away for a short mission, about his commentary on the movies they like to watch. Every word is lovingly crafted, and Eggsy has to pull away—has to stop before—

_Eggsy has said he’d walk through fire, and he’s already crossed an ocean and stayed in a strange land for me._

_I’ll do the same thing._

_Oh,_ E ggsy thinks.

* * *

Midterms are over, Thanksgiving is just next week, and Eggsy can tell that Harry really, really wants a break from calculating grades in an Excel spreadsheet. 

"What do you normally do on Thanksgiving?" Eggsy asks, letting JB sniff at the same tree for another two minutes. If he gets impatient and starts tugging on the leash, JB will get his revenge by later doing his business somewhere in the flat, especially near Eggsy's couch. The dog had a vengeance streak, as sweet as he pretended to be. 

Harry waits with him, looking around at the yellow leaves littering the sidewalk. They both can still see their apartment. "Oh, I usually just go on a vacation by myself for a few days."

"Alone?" 

The older man raises his eyebrows. "Yes, Eggsy,  _by myself_ traditionally means  _alone."_

Well, isn't  _that_ a depressing answer. "But don't you ever do something with any of the professors or something?"

As soon as the sentence leaves his mouth, Eggsy winces. Harry  _doesn't_ talk much to his colleagues; sure, he occasionally stops when they greet him to chat, but Harry's usually a private man, and his co-workers know it. There are no invitations to go drinking or walking or whatever professors do in their spare time, and a lot of them looked very surprised when Harry and Eggsy made an appearance at the Halloween party. It wasn't much to speak of: orange and black streamers, droll conversations about literature, a spiked punch bowl, and Harry's boss snatching curious looks at Eggsy's Jaime Lannister costume. At least a few of the professors watched the series ( _and_ read all the books), so Eggsy wasn't completely bored, but it was clear that Harry had no idea what to do with himself. He smiled graciously and said all the right things, but after a good hour and a half, Eggsy had quietly slunk to Harry's side and asked if they could go home.

The relief on Harry's face had been very telling. 

"No," Harry says. He's now watching JB slowly nuzzle at a tree root. "No. Why, what are you thinking of?"

"A real Thanksgiving dinner. Since we're in America, you know what the saying is." Eggsy shrugs, but he can't deny the tempting image of them sitting at Harry's kitchen table stuffed with platefuls of food with candles lit all all around, something comfortable and intimate. "Do as the Romans do." 

"With just us?" Harry asks curiously. 

An idea hits him just then. "Nope," Eggsy says mysteriously, sighing in relief when JB finally decides to prance away to a different tree. "Not just us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who's going to be the guests at Thanksgiving? ;) I'll give you three guesses.
> 
> Also, 'Selfie' is what got me into 'My Fair Lady' a while back, and all of what Eggsy states is true. It's a very quirky and somewhat odd show, but the leads are cute, and you really do start rooting for them to get together. Unfortunately, it was cancelled before it could reach its full potential, but alas...


	5. Chapter 5

Harry wakes up.

The bed underneath him is strangely soft and…loose, shifting like sand when he moves to sit up and hears a faint rustle-thump. The clear blue Kentucky sky teases his vision, but all around, he can see tamped-down walls with tiny holes and specks of black and coffee-brown and tan.

He’s in a _grave._

“Merlin,” he tries to shout, but his voice is too dry and hoarse. _“Merlin!”_

His friend’s back is turned away from the hole in the ground, impassively facing a crowd. “We are gathered here to mourn the passing of Galahad, known to a few as Harry Hart, who was lost during V-Day…”

“I’m _here,”_ Harry gasps desperately. He sees familiar figures of Percival and Roxy and Eggsy standing with their hands folded solemnly; they are all wearing dark Kingsman suits, giving him the impression of a row of crows. _A murder,_ he thinks, and for the first time, feels wetness trickle down his forehead.

There’s _pain_ in the forefront of his head, pulsing but sharp, like glass being slowly squeezed into shards. Harry shuts his eyes, wincing, but the stress on his forehead seems to make it worse, feeling every stretch along his forehead and wrinkle between his eyebrows. The trickling increases, throbbing underneath his skin, and more liquid flows down his neck and under his collar and won’t stop—

Dirt suddenly hits his face, blinding him, choking him—his heart stutters as his lungs gasp—he has to get out—he’s _alive—_

“Harry! Harry, it’s all right; we’re here.”

Harry blearily blinks awake, and feels a pulsing pain in his head, with light weight around one of his clenched fists. He looks to his side, and Eggsy’s hand is on top of his, comforting and steady.

He doesn’t want Eggsy to let go, but the younger man does—to silently hand him a white bottle with a red label. Eggsy watches as Harry takes the pills, small and oval and orange, staining his fingers and blending like watercolors with the perspiration on his fingertips. Harry swallows one dry, working enough spit so he doesn’t have to keep gulping to get the pill down his throat.

 _Stress headache,_ he thinks, but it seems more like the bullet’s still there, reminding him what he nearly lost.

“Better?” Eggsy asks, tentatively. He’s already dressed for the day, in jeans and a red flannel, and his hair sticks to the sweat on his forehead. Harry can’t pretend he feels something squeeze in his chest when Eggsy looks at him and smiles, brighter than the morning sunlight streaming through the window.

“Much,” Harry replies, hoping his tone doesn’t sound _too_ obvious, but it’s truly hard. He’s here with Eggsy, he’s going to see old friends, and he’s finally away from the cramped apartment. This day has been something he’s been looking forward to ever since they called Merlin.

Eggsy now reaches forward, pressing a button on the back of the seat in front of them.

“Merlin, Rox, we have arrived in Philadelphia,” Eggsy announces, with a short little grin in Harry’s direction. “Everyone ready for Thanksgiving?”

* * *

 Now, as Harry steps into the diner, he sees the two agents waving from the table, grinning broadly. In front of them are piping-hot, half-eaten omelets with full glasses of orange juice, and Merlin’s fork is halfway to his mouth when his eyes lock onto Harry’s. He suddenly stands up, fork clattering to his plate, and practically leaps across the room. In the background, Harry can hear Roxy and Eggsy laugh, as well as the patrons murmuring, when he utters an _oomph_ as his old friend embraces him.

“Merlin?” Harry gasps, surprised and pleased. “I thought you thought you wouldn’t able to come—“

“Put Percival in charge for my absence; he’s far more than capable,” Merlin carelessly says, clapping him on the back before pulling away. “God, look at you, Harry! I still can’t believe you’re—well—“

“Alive?” Harry suggests dryly. “Neither can I…”

“Not only that, but settling down?” Merlin grins, then lowers his voice: “Never thought I’d see the day where Harry Hart strides into the room without some sort of weapon.”

“I wasn’t that paranoid.”

“You had Rainmakers in every single room in your house—your old house,” Merlin corrects, and Harry vaguely recalls an umbrella stand, fashioned from a lamp, in his office—his _old_ office, with the red room and newspaper covers, not the cramped one on his campus with a usually-absent office mate and enormous stacks of papers.

Merlin is still talking, but Harry’s trying to catalogue the memories that flash in his head—standing on a chair and putting the first newspaper up, typing a last-minute report at three in the morning, bringing out two martinis for himself and Merlin, Eggsy slouching in a leather chair—

“Stop texting, Rox! Amelia’s not going to leave you if you put your phone down for a few.”

Roxy lightly whacks Eggsy’s shoulder. “Shut _up._ ” Her cheeks are bright red when she turns to face Harry, holding out a hand for him to shake. “Hello, Harry, how are you?”

“Well,” Harry simply says, squeezing her hand, “you got back from a mission?”

Roxy looks down at her suit and laughs. “Yes, that’s right. Finished saving Prince Harry from an assassination attempt and just collapsed onto the plane. I haven’t had the energy to change…”

“And you will, when you have a proper breakfast,” Eggsy says almost sternly, eyes locked onto a passing waiter. “Eat up, everyone, before we get started for today.”

“So, what’s the itinerary for today?” Harry asks, before sliding gratefully into the booth, next to Merlin.

 _“_ An _American_ feast, _”_ Roxy scoffs, scrolling through something on her phone, as Eggsy also sits down. “I was talking to Hamilton, and I was wondering this: why does America put marshmallows on _sweet potatoes_?”

“It’s a cultural experience,” Eggsy says, with dignity, and Harry has to smile at the thought of Eggsy suddenly thinking he’s some sort of an American ambassador.

“And besides, we’re only having the finest tonight: turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, roasted veggies, cranberry sauce, peach cobbler, two different kinds of pies, and god knows what else.” Merlin lists, just as their waiter arrives to take Harry and Eggsy’s orders. “But I can do without the cranberry sauce.”

“Breakfast is on me,” Harry tells Eggsy, after the harried waiter hurries away to the kitchen, before saying to his friend: “I’ve never had cranberry sauce.”

“Even more reason to try it!” Eggsy exclaims, stealing a piece of Roxy’s toast.

Merlin shakes his head, pushing his plate towards Harry. “Stick with whatever innocence you have left.”

Harry, like Eggsy, takes Merlin’s sourdough toast. “I believe I’ll have at least a bite. But honestly, I wouldn’t mind if we simply got take-out; I’m glad all of you were able to be here.”

“Well, we had to come,” Merlin says, taking a sip of his orange juice. “Couldn’t let you hog Eggsy to yourself.”

Eggsy, for some reason, chokes, even though his pumpkin pie pancakes hasn’t yet arrived and he hasn’t even taken a sip of his water drank.

“You all right?” Harry asks, leaning over the table in concern.

Roxy replies before Eggsy can: “Oh, he’s perfectly fine. Trust me.”

They take almost an hour to catch up and eat breakfast, with Harry wincing at Eggsy’s too-sugary stack of pancakes, then head out to explore the town a little. It’s very crowded, with lots of tourists taking pictures in front of various historical sites and a few teenagers singing songs from a musical about a founding father. Some places require tickets, so Harry, Eggsy, Merlin, and Roxy try their best to crane their necks, with Eggsy occasionally joking about using Kingsman stealth tactics to break in.

They get Philly cheesesteaks and ice cream and stroll through the park, just talking, and Harry’s found that he’s _missed_ company. Eggsy is wonderful, but being with two other people today makes Harry realize how isolated he was in Kentucky, with Eggsy the only link to his former home. And not only that—Eggsy was his only _friend,_ his only confidant, his only…person he could be himself with.

But with Merlin and Roxy, he feels as if that weight Eggsy unknowingly bears is now shared. He chats with his old friend about football and what he can remember about the old Kingsman days and various holidays and missions, and Roxy, even though they’ve never truly spoken before, easily commiserate over the so-called burdens of growing up posh and trade horseback riding accident stories.

It’s well into the afternoon when Merlin leads them to a Kingsman tailor shop, nods at the bored-looking attendant, and ushers everyone into a cramped fitting room.

“Just like home,” Harry says, as the lift begins to descend, and sees Merlin smile, pleased at his recollection.

“It’s either that, or through a secret passageway in Independence Hall, but it’s too crowded today.”

“I’ve done _that_ ,” Eggsy says eagerly, nudging Harry in the side. “You walk up to the Liberty Bell—“

“Eggsy!” Roxy suddenly exclaims, looking at her watch.

“What, Rox, it’s not like I’m telling this to a random civilian—“

“We’re _late_.” She sighs. “Jefferson is going to give it to us.”

* * *

 Jefferson does _not_ “give it to them.” Instead, after unpacking, everyone follows Eggsy’s lead—to hide in the kitchen and offer help in exchange for scraps of early Thanksgiving dinner. Harry recognizes a few agents bustling around the kitchen—Hancock, Penn, Chase—and has to be introduced to new faces—Adams, Lynch, and Adams. Those with the new faces smile and shake his hand and say they’re pleased to meet someone from another country, while the old faces vaguely nod and half-smile and seem to avoid his gaze.

Harry bumps hips and spills gravy and ducks to avoid a swinging frying pan, but he likes being preoccupied, likes having something useful to do, likes the chaos. He and Adams—who was supposed to be in reference to _Samuel Adams,_ not John Adams, who was busy helping Merlin with one of the turkeys—scurry and try their best to not get in anyone’s way. Adams chats about her girlfriend, who’s in tech and not a field agent, and her two cats and one of her missions that involved being a rodeo clown, but doesn’t mention family at all. Either they’re dead, or she simply doesn’t get into contact with them, but Harry’s glad that he doesn’t have to try to wrack his brain and try to match story for story about families.

Near five, Eggsy groans for the fifteenth time today, hands still smelling strongly of spilled olive oil. The floor might not be the same again, the tips of Roxy’s hair are burned from leaning too close over the stovetop, and Merlin looks as if he wants to hit something. And that’s just _his_ agents. “The turkey is taking _forever_.”

Adams opens the oven door and stabs it expertly with the thermometer in three different places. “The meat’s not done. I think we’ll need about twenty minutes—“

“Twenty minutes?” Eggsy groans again, with an audible grumble of his stomach.

“We also have to let it rest for another half-hour,” Hancock notes, checking the recipe on her phone.

“What? Rest? The turkey can’t be tired—it’s dead!”

Hancock explains, “It’s to have the meat firm up and the juices to be reabsorbed into the muscle tissue.”

Eggsy sighs, looking mournfully at the covered dishes on the counter. “Can’t we just get started now?”

“We’ve all already eaten half of the mashed potatoes,” Roxy points out. “And we barely had enough peaches for the cobbler—how are you even this hungry?”

A beeping interrupts Eggsy’s protests, and everyone glances around and checks various things—glasses, wristwatches, tablets—while Harry looks at Merlin, confused. “Jefferson,” Merlin mutters, without looking up from his tablet screen. “Says there’s a minor emergency, and he’s coming over in a moment to fetch us four. We’re going to have to put dinner on hold.”

“That’s just rude,” Eggsy complains. _“Americans.”_

“Oh, like you’ve never been rude in your life,” Merlin easily replies, typing something. “Besides, Madison and Franklin are quite nice, and Hancock and I just talked about what it’s like, looking after you lot.” He checks his tablet. “You should be expecting him in—“

There’s a knock on the door.

“Now,” Eggsy sighs, and goes to open it.

A man steps through, taking in the kitchen with a bored gaze. He’s tall with graying, curly hair and a hard-set chin, dressed in flannel and a leather jacket with a handgun displayed at his belt. Even though it’s close to evening _and_ he’s inside, Jefferson’s wearing sunglasses. Harry still doesn’t remember quite as much as he would like, but he _does_ remember migraine headaches associated with this particular American agent.

“Jefferson,” Eggsy says, tone stiffening, “Afternoon.”

“Pleasure,” Jefferson replies, but it is clearly not. “A bit crowded in here, no? Shall we step outside?”

Merlin and Roxy and Eggsy exchange glances, before acquiescing, with Merlin nodding for Harry to follow. They all step outside the kitchen, Jefferson closing the door behind them.

“So, you’ve all moved in,” the American agent says. “Wonderful. And—Gala—Mr. Hart?” Jefferson corrects, surprised. He rakes his eyes up Harry’s body, surely cataloguing his civilian clothes, the slight paunch of his stomach, and the way Eggsy steps in front of him, almost protectively. “We were under the impression that you were dead.”

“Temporarily waylaid by a bullet to the head,” Harry corrects, with a genial smile.

Jefferson raises his eyebrows. “Ah. That explains quite a lot. It was strange seeing a boy in your shoes.”

“Eggsy’s no _boy_ ,” Harry defends, noting Eggsy’s scowl.

“Well, we have a lead from the mission in Texas, and we… _might_ need some input. For a mission.”

Eggsy sighs irritably, glancing at the door that leads to the kitchen. “ _Jefferson,_ it’s Thanksgiving!”

“I know,” Jefferson replies, “what is it you Brits say? Many happy returns?”

Eggsy and Roxy exchange baleful looks, before Merlin steps in. “Something like that,” he says calmly. “Should we discuss this in your office?”

“Yes,” Jefferson says shortly, and begins walking without looking back. “Well, as all of you may know, the underground drug ring was much larger than anticipated. Some escaped—and we found out that a few of them used to be tied up in one of Valentine’s companies. Franklin did some research—” he pulls out a tablet from his jacket pocket and points. “And part of the ring was to test the effects of a new…substance.”

“Like what?” Roxy asks.

“A powerful drug—the layman would call it mind control.”

Eggsy and Roxy both suck in sharp breaths between their teeth, and Merlin’s eyebrows tighten in the middle. Harry raises his own. You can’t be a Kingsman without running into a few plots that involved mind control, but all of them were alarming, in many ways.

And especially now, it’s something he’d rather not experience again.

“Since you have had experience with Valentine, Madison and Franklin thought we could collaborate.” It’s obvious from Jefferson’s tone that he did _not_ think this idea was a good one. “Are you coming with us, Mr. Hart?”

Eggsy speaks up: “Lancelot and I can take it.”

Jefferson glances at Roxy, as if seeing her for the first time. “Are they recruiting so young?”

“We saved the world,” Eggsy points out, a pointed edge to his tone.

“Not before the slaughter of thousands.”

Eggsy’s jaw tightens at _that_ , and Roxy puts a comforting hand on his shoulder. Harry doesn’t know what to do or to say, and Jefferson only makes that more difficult by crossing his arms and pointedly glaring.

Merlin coughs.

“I’m Lancelot’s handler,” he says. “And I can take Galahad, too.”

“All right, then.” Jefferson lets out a long-suffering sigh as he opens a door, revealing a room with a pool table and a flat screen above it. “We’ve managed to bug someone who’s in contact with one of the dealers—“ He pulls up the file on his tablet, and projects grainy footage on the flat screen of a young woman, with curling dark hair and wide eyes. She’s bundled in a sweatshirt and glancing from side to side, stepping off a bus. Nervously smiling at the man approaching her, she stops. Freezes.

Harry then says, “I’m coming, too.”

Eggsy frowns. “Harry—“ he begins to protest, but Harry cuts him off.

“I know her,” he says. “She’s one of my students. Lydia.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the belated update; I ended up rewriting this so much that it got rather lengthy, so as a result, this particular jaunt in Philadelphia will be split into two chapters.


	6. Chapter 6

Needless to say, the Thanksgiving dinner is awkward as fuck.

Eggsy likes Hamilton well enough, but the danger of getting into a conversation with the fellow agent was that the other man could turn a five-minute exchange of pleasantries into an hour-long dissertation. So, luckily for him, but unluckily for Roxy, she’s seated directly across from Hamilton, who prattles on and on about a video game he’s currently playing, listing all the possible options for him to make and outlining every pro and con with said option.  

Meanwhile, Merlin’s deep in conversation with Franklin about alternative worlds theory—or something like that—while Harry’s chatting with Burr, who apparently worked with him during the “breaking up an undercover spy ring in the Pentagon” mission years ago: _Germany – 1, England – 5_ headline.

In hindsight, Eggsy wishes he _had_ been seated next to Hamilton, because getting stuck between Jefferson and Madison is seriously uncomfortable. They basically ignore him, which is fine by him, but everyone around him is chatting with someone else. Even Roxy, who started out the night looking like she wanted to pass out into the sweet potatoes, is now drawing possible tactical maneuvers on her plate by dragging a knife through gravy, all while Hamilton nods in fascination. He looks  _infatuated,_ and Eggsy hopes that Roxy's told him that she's got someone back home. 

But all Eggsy can really do is stuff his face and muse on his now-current mission.

* * *

  _"Your_ student _?"  almost everyone exclaims at once._

_"Lydia?" Eggsy recalls her easily, one of Harry's favorite students, who saw them together at the restaurant. The pre-med major. Dark brown eyes. She'd smiled at them, several times, when she saw them together. It's the same look some of Harry's fellow professors had during the Halloween party and the ones Merlin and Roxy have been shooting them all day. "Why would she—“_

_“The intel didn’t say,” Jefferson interrupts, lips thinning. “But we’re trying to pin down the man she was talking with. Hopefully, he can lead us to what we’re looking for.”_

_Eggsy stares at the screen. Only the back of the bloke’s head is displayed: dark, curly hair. He’s also wearing a suit. Nothing glaringly obvious—but then again, he would have been caught already if he was flashing some logo. Merlin and Roxy had been increasingly removing the significant K from their gear and shit—“I kept telling Arthur that we shouldn’t put our secret symbol on everything, but no,” the quartermaster had sighed multiple times—but Eggsy knows that, in all his admittedly-meager years of spying, compared to the other agents, a name can be the most powerful thing, even if it’s an alias._

_Still, though: the man could be anyone, and Lydia—willing or not—could be in danger. Although he barely knows her, she seems like a nice enough bird that shouldn’t be involved in mind control, of all things._

_“You can’t come,” Merlin now declares, firmly but low enough so Jefferson can’t hear. “You can’t.”_

_Harry wordlessly looks between him and Eggsy, something desperate in his features. Eggsy knows what it’s like to want to prove your worth, but also knows, deep in his heart, that this isn’t something Harry can pick up that easily. It’s not like riding a bike; it’s more like trying to recall a language you haven’t spoken for years. Eggsy just barely remembers Princess Tilde’s brief Swedish lessons on the plane ride home after V-Day as a distraction technique to keep him from breaking down. But whenever she visits or calls him, Eggsy can’t, for the life of him, do more than stutter four-word phrases._

_“You have to practice every day,” Tilde had said, with a stern look at the camera, just a few weeks after Eggsy had first ran into Harry in Kentucky. She’d clucked at his situation and then tried to rapidly question him about how he felt in Swedish, only for Eggsy to violently shake his head. “How do you think my English is as good as it is?”_

_“You should go,” Jefferson now comments, sensing the tension, like how sharks sense blood._

_“No,” Harry says. “Galahad and Lancelot should go in my place.”_

_It must shame Harry to say that to a man who’s been unpleasant towards him the entire time, and Eggsy shoots him an imploring glance, an apology of sorts, but Harry doesn’t look at him._

_“Do as you like,” Jefferson then mutters, disgruntled, but a glint of what looks appears to be smugness lights his eyes._

* * *

Somewhere between his thoughts, Harry catches his eyes and smiles. Eggsy smiles back, nodding once, and opens his mouth to try to shout something across the table when a spoon clinked five times against a glass interrupts.

“This may be long overdue,” Washington, at the head of the table, announces, and everyone glances up, disgruntled at having their merriment interrupted. “But a toast to what we have, regardless of the tragedies we are so unfortunate to bear every day: to family, to friendship, to love. To Kingsman.”

The knights laugh in agreement, clinking glasses everywhere, echoing Washington’s sentiments. Jefferson and Madison solemnly intone, “To Kingsman,” as they knock wine glasses in front of Eggsy’s face, as others, including Roxy and Hamilton, drink to friendship. Some, Eggsy notices, don’t express gratitude for family, but nod to the person nearest to them.

He realizes that a _lot_ of agents are here, and wonders if the Americans have a similar tradition to the Kingsman back home: those who do have families and friends stay home, while the ones who don’t are invited to an extravagant dinner back at HQ. Eggsy himself had opted to spend his holidays with his family and mates—although he, Jamal, and Ryan, to be honest, can’t talk about much these days—but occasionally popped in to see Merlin, Roxy, and Percival. Roxy once privately revealed to him that her uncle and James liked to take a private holiday during special occasions, but ever since James’ death, Percival preferred to dine alone at home. Recently, ever since Roxy began seeing Amelia and introducing her to her co-workers, Percival began attending the functions.

Eggsy remembered being cross with Roxy for insisting her uncle come along with them, whether it was for holiday celebrations or out drinking—not that he didn’t like the man, but it was clearly obvious Percival didn’t _want_ to go. When he and Roxy got into the most terrible fights they’d ever had, not including the one after Kingsman decided to stop looking for Harry’s body, with Eggsy telling Roxy to leave it off, Roxy had snapped, “Perhaps you and my uncle have a lot more in common than you thought!”

After they both apologized to each other, Eggsy went to talk to Percival. Even though they don’t call themselves best mates—Roxy was always going to be Eggsy’s, and Percival didn’t seem to the type to even say _best mates—_ Eggsy and Percival got along well. They sometimes discussed memories of James and Harry, but always in casual terms, not sloppy crying sessions like Eggsy sometimes had while getting smashed with Roxy. It didn’t need to be said. It just needed to be acknowledged.

_James would have liked this play, very outrageous._

_Harry used to play football, and he hated Manchester United. I didn't know that until I saw the photo albums stashed away in the basement._

_I think you and James would have been fast friends, if he’d lived._

_I was thinking about carting away Mr. Pickle, but I can’t, you know, even if it creeps me the fuck out._

Eggsy now wonders what would happen if he toasted Washington’s last statement while looking at Harry. Harry’s now smiling in the direction of Merlin, and Eggsy can picture it: Harry rotating to put his glass down, catching Eggsy’s eye, and Eggsy raising the glass of wine he’d barely touched all evening. _To love,_ he’d mouth. He doesn’t think he’d be able to shout it yet.

But while Harry _does_ catch his eye, Eggsy only smiles and nods once, as casually as he can because he’s a fucking coward.

“You are _so_ gone,” Roxy tells him, as soon as everyone stands up to go either play some games or sleep off all the food.

“I don’t know if _he’s_ gone.”

“You’re an idiot,” she says, before following Hamilton, who’s shouting for the Scrabble board. “You’re a real idiot.”

* * *

After the thirtieth round of Heads Up!, Eggsy decides he needs a break from the constant shouting and too-warm room. Normally, when alcohol and competition mix, Eggsy’s completely in his element, but looking around at the howling laughter and constantly-fumbling reflexes, he only feels tired. Even without his suit, Eggsy feels too hot, too stifled, and too worn down. There’s the mission, there’s Jefferson’s aggressive stares, and there’s Harry.

It’s always been Harry.

Quietly excusing himself, since he is a gentleman after all, Eggsy walks as quickly as he can out of the room, trying not to be seen by Merlin or Roxy. They’d pull him aside and ask what’s wrong, if they can keep him company, if he needs something, and Eggsy doesn’t want to deal with that.

Since the entire American HQ is _underground_ , so much unlike home, Eggsy can’t take a walk around the grounds. He doesn’t even have JB—whom, which much guilt, had been arranged to romp around in his mum and Daisy’s flat during Eggsy’s absence. He doesn’t want to spar with anyone, even if some might be game, or even train alone. Wandering mindlessly in the halls seems boring and lonely, but it keeps Eggsy’s mind vaguely occupied for the moment.

He’s so busy on trying to think on more where he’s going that he bumps into someone _hard_ in the hall.

“Shit, sorry, mate,” Eggsy begins to apologize, but looks up. “Hey,” he adds, rather lamely.

Harry nods back, smiling a little. “Hello, Eggsy. It’s all right; I wasn’t looking where I was going.”

“Neither was I. If you don’t mind me saying…last time I saw you, you was—were—playing chess with Burr.”

“Oh, I believe I was winning—until, of course, someone drunkenly stumbled into the table and knocked the board off. Burr decided to try beating Hamilton, Roxy, and Hancock at Scrabble instead.”

“So, she left you alone?” Eggsy asks, probably more disgruntled than he has a right to be. “Wanker.”

“No,” Harry replies. “I wanted to be alone.”

Eggsy winces. “Oh. Should I go, then?”

“No, Eggsy. Stay. If you like.” Harry gestures down the hall, with its lights turned off to save electricity. “I haven’t walked around here in a long time, so I was just…I needed to—well, get some air. Not in the literal sense, of course, but…”

“I know what you mean.”

“I feel like I’m not at all here,” Harry suddenly confesses, vulnerable and trusting. Eggsy understands. It feels much easier to say these things in the dark. “You know I want to come back, Eggsy, but it makes me restless. I wanted to _hurt_ people in that church, and I did. That’s not what a Kingsman is. I think I once told you that a Kingsman only condones taking a life if it’s to save another.”

Eggsy flinches, remembering the next line: _As my dad saved your life when your fuck-up cost his?_ They’d trivialized what they meant to each other that day, and Harry’s apparently now determined to not let that happen again:

“I never got to say that I was sorry. For lashing out and…making you mourn—and hurting you. Thank you.”

“It’s me who should be thanking you—“

“No, Eggsy. You’ve proven yourself a capable, worthy young man without my help. You have helped create the next generation of Kingsman. I may have given you a direction, but you forged your own path.” The lump in Eggsy’s throat that’s been stuck for months—years, really—loosens. “Thank you, Eggsy, for bringing some warmth into my life.”

“Yeah, well,” Eggsy’s voice is quiet. “You too.”

“So, why _do_ you want to come back?” Eggsy then asks. “If you want to move on, it doesn’t mean you’ll lose me.”

“But you have a life back there. Is it fair, Eggsy, for you to be trapped here, in a country you’ve only known for roughly two months?” Harry turns to face him. “And I do want to come back. I want to go home. I want to go home with _you_.”

If this were one of those movies Harry likes, Eggsy would pull him in, and kiss Harry for the first time. But he doesn’t know if it would be reciprocated and doesn’t have the courage.

Instead, Eggsy mutters something like _I’d like that,_ and gestures for both of them to start walking.


End file.
